While the focus of the story is mostly on baseball players like Chase Utley, Carlos Delgado and Alex Rodriguez, it also digs into the hip injuries suffered by hockey (namely Rick DiPietro) and soccer players.

In the story, Schmidt writes:

Dr. Bryan T. Kelly, a surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan, performed Utley’s operation and is scheduled to operate on (teammate Brett) Myers. He said he did not believe it was a coincidence that “I get 40 hockey players in a six-week period at the end of the season all coming into my office with the same-looking bone structure in their hips, all saying that they have been skating since they were 3 years old.”

Kelly added, “I believe we are seeing some consequences from having our kids over the past few decades playing sports more at younger ages.”

Krejci played soccer and hockey growing up and then focused solely on hockey in his early teens. So he could be among the group of players that just wear out their hips. The good news is that with the increase in these injuries and the improvement of the technology for treating them, injuries like Krejci’s can be diagnosed and handled before they get too serious. Krejci is scheduled to undergo surgery this week.